


i love you.

by chadsuke



Category: Naruto
Genre: Alternate Universe - College/University, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-05-15
Updated: 2019-05-15
Packaged: 2020-03-05 18:18:20
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,165
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18834115
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/chadsuke/pseuds/chadsuke
Summary: Prompt: Sasunaru + "I love you."





	i love you.

They’re sitting on the couch, a meaningless TV show playing and Sasuke doing his best to not nod off when Naruto kisses him.

It’s not their first kiss - not by a long shot. He’s kissed Naruto and Naruto’s kissed him and there has, quite frankly, been a lot of lip-on-lip contact. So Sasuke closes his eyes, leaning into it - his hand slips up Naruto’s neck to tangle in the blonde’s hair, and Naruto cups Sasuke’s cheek oh so gently and it’s good.

Naruto pulls back and Sasuke blinks at him, surprised and a little fuzzed from drowsiness. And a little fuzzed in general - he’s not wearing his contacts, and his glasses sit on the side table.

“Hey, Sasuke?” Naruto asks, and his voice is a little funny, a little intense, and Sasuke squints at him.

“Yeah?”

“I...” Naruto clears his throat twice, ducking his head for a moment, and then meets his eyes. “I love you.”

Sasuke stops breathing.

He stops breathing so hard his vision starts to black out at the edges and there’s a rustle of movement and touch and the next thing he knows, he has his head between his legs as Naruto rubs his back gently. “Ssh, ssh,” his boyfriend says. “Breathe. In with me, out with me.”

Sasuke manages, somehow. He breathes in, breathes out, inhales and exhales until the world regains view and color and he doesn’t feel like he’s going to keel over. He grabs his glasses and shoves them on and glances up at a kind-of-distraught Naruto. “Did I just...?”

“Panic attack, yeah,” he agrees, and Sasuke can still feel it, can still feel the hitch in his breathing and his hands tremble, just a little bit because Naruto

Naruto  _loves_ -

He inhales sharply, and exhales more slowly, letting it all rush out through his teeth. Naruto continues to rub his back, and he doesn’t push.

Slowly, slowly, Sasuke comes together, piece by piece, feeling tingling in his limbs once more and he slumps back against the couch. “Sorry,” he says, because he really does feel like an absolute jackass. Who has a like- he glances at his fitbit - 15-ish minute panic attack because their boyfriend tells him he loves him?

Uchiha Sasuke, that’s who.

Naruto bites his lip, a habit picked up from Sakura that Sasuke can’t quite bring himself to hate, looking over him worriedly. “You don’t need to say sorry,” he says. “I should’ve- should’ve warned you or- or something!” Warned. He needs warnings, now, and Sasuke feels like utter crap.

“You shouldn’t need to,” he says, and Naruto’s gaze softens.

He reaches out, brushing Sasuke’s bangs gently away from his face, and leans in to kiss his temple - watching the entire time for any sort of discomfort. Sasuke doesn’t show any, and Naruto’s lips are warm. “You’ve got your shit,” he says, eloquently, and Sasuke snorts. “What? You do! And so do I! We’ve both got our shit. And-”

Naruto stops. He licks his lips, and he tries to speak again. “And... if you can’t say it back, it’s... it’s okay.”

That... hurts, that achingly hurts because Sasuke can see it in Naruto’s eyes. The glimmer of hope that’s quashed by disappointment and sorrow and Sasuke  _knows_  that this is one of Naruto’s hang-ups. His self-sacrificing martyr bullshit is absolutely one of his hang-ups, and Sasuke will do all he can to nip that in the bud.

“I-” Sasuke tries, and that glimmer of guarded hope in Naruto’s eyes shines just a little more. “I don’t... I don’t know if I can...” The words stick in his throat. They choke him like brambles, and the light dims in Naruto’s eyes and  _that’s the worst thing in the whole world._

“It’s- same.” He manages to get it out. “I feel the same.” Sasuke grinds out every word like they’re painful to say, because they  _are_ , but it’s worth every thorn in his throat.

Because Naruto lights up, throwing his arms around Sasuke and pulling him in for a tight hug. “Thank you, thank you, thank you,” he says, and Sasuke squeezes him back. “I love you.”

* * *

Naruto uses it. He keeps using it, every day, every minute. In the morning, before he heads off to art history, he drops a kiss on Sasuke’s lips and smiles. “I love you,” he says, and he’s gone. “I’m home!” he announces when he gets back, grabbing Sasuke around the waist and giving him a grin. “I love you,” he says, and he gives him an eskimo kiss.

He says it at breakfast, at lunch, at dinner. When Sasuke hands him the remote it gets him a peck on the nose and an another announcement of “I love you.”

It’s like-

It’s like once Sasuke wasn’t going to break down anymore, wasn’t going to full apart at the drop of a hat, it was his new favorite sentence. And yeah, the first week of that was very... rough, but now he’s used to it. Now Sasuke barely bats an eye when Naruto says it because he says it so much - but it makes him feel warm, now, like Naruto’s love has lit a blazing bonfire within him.

What’s so clear to him, though, is the absence of his own words.

Sasuke never says it back. Oh, he tries - quietly chokes on his own words without his boyfriend noticing, trying to say it back but keeping it locked away, and it... it must hurt. It must grate on Naruto, in some way, even if he doesn’t show it, and the Uchiha knows he’s hurting him.

One day, when Naruto’s gone, he practices in the mirror. Word by word. “I.” Inhaled, exhale. “Love.” Inhale, exhales. “You.”

He says it word by word and then shortens the pauses in between and it evolves into one sentence, one statement, and he clenches his fists so tightly his nails cut into his skin. “I love you,” he says at the mirror.

“Sasuke?” Naruto asks from behind him, and Sasuke spins.

That dreaded, awful hope is in Naruto’s eyes again, and Sasuke doesn’t know how long he was standing there, how much he heard, but- but-

He clears his throat. “I lo- I love you,” he creaks out, and it’s the worst he’s ever sounded, the most embarrassing vocal noise he’s ever produced, but he forgets that in an instant because Naruto starts crying.

Naruto is the messiest crier that Sasuke has ever met - which is why, after “A Walk to Remember”, they’re never watching another sad movie in the apartment again - but right now, it doesn’t matter. He lurches forward to wrap his arms around Naruto and his boyfriend hugs him back, burying his face in Sasuke’s shoulder and getting snot and tears all over his T-shirt and Sasuke doesn’t care at all.

“I love you,” Naruto gasps out between tears, and Sasuke’s absolutely crying too because he’s also an emotional wreck.

“I love you, too,” he says, and he squeezes him tight.

**Author's Note:**

> well, this was a drabble that spiraled out of control coughs.
> 
> thanks for reading!! as always you can find me on tumblr as 'ftcoye', where i take drabble requests. thanks!


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